“Everyone likes peaches,” Grace continued. “They’re universally beloved. And she’ll be the same.”
Rafe opened his mouth, then closed it again. “There’s no way to argue that point without insulting your biological child, so I’m not going to try. Well played, by the way.”
Grace shrugged.
“So you’re not going to tell them?”
“You think it’s a bad idea?”
“I think it’s a terrible idea. Secrets always get out.”
“But it doesn’t even affect them.”
“She’s their niece.”
“Not anymore. She has a new family.”
“Okay, forget about Peach then. What about you? They could be supporting you and you’re not even letting them in.”
Grace laughed and signaled the waitress for more mayonnaise. (“Disgusting,” Rafe said under his breath.) “Well, seeing as how they think our mom is basically a demon for giving all of us up, I’d rather not get their opinion on how I did the same thing to Peach.”
“I’m sorry. Why Peach again?” Rafe asked.
“That’s how big she was when I found out I was pregnant with her. When you’re pregnant, they always describe the size of the baby in utero in relation to food. Bean, lime, peach, grapefruit. . . . Peach is what stuck.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I just think that if you tell Maya and Joaquin, they’ll be a lot more understanding. None of you knows why your mom—”
“Bio mom,” Grace interrupted.
“What?”
“My bio mom. I have a mom. She’s back at my house probably wondering why I’m not texting her back.”
“Got it. None of you knows why your bio mom did what she did, but Maya and Joaquin would probably understand why you did it. You should tell them.”
“Maybe it’s none of their business.”
“Well, using that logic, then no one would tell anyone anything about anything.”
“So if you got pregnant, you’d tell your sister?”
Rafe smirked. “If I got pregnant, I’d have a pretty hard time keeping it a secret from anyone, much less my older sister.”
“You know what I mean,” Grace said, shooting him a look.
“I know, I know, I’m just kidding. But yeah, I’d tell my sister. I tell her everything. And you can’t just assume how they’ll react. That’s not fair to them.”
Grace looked at him over their shared trays of french fries and hamburgers. “I just met them, you know? I don’t want them to hate me before they even get a chance to know me.”
“Does it count as knowing you if they don’t know one of the most important things that’s happened to you?”
Grace didn’t have an answer for that.
“So you tell your sister everything?” she asked instead. “Really?” Grace tried to imagine having someone like that in her life.
“Everything,” Rafe said, stealing some of Grace’s fries, pulling them away before she could swat at his hand. “Such an only child,” he chided her. “Not even willing to share.”
Grace smiled despite herself. “And she doesn’t judge you or anything?”
“Are you kidding? She judges the hell out of me sometimes. But she’s still my sister. She’ll still talk to me for an hour about something even if she thinks I’m being stupid about it. Maybe that’s why she talks to me for so long, now that I’m thinking about it.”
“I think you’re the only person I’ve actually told about Peach,” Grace admitted. “Everyone else either already knew or saw me when I was pregnant.”
“And did I judge?” Rafe asked, his voice innocent. “No, ma’am, I did not.”
“Everyone else did.”
“Grace.” The joking tone fell away from Rafe’s voice, and he set down his fries on his tray. “You don’t have to tell anyone. But it’d just be a shame if you had all these people willing to support you, and you never let them.”
“But what if they’re not?”
Rafe smiled at her. “What if they are?”
After she got home that night, Grace sat down in front of her computer. Her hair still smelled like french fries from the restaurant, and she tied it back as she opened her search engine.
She waited almost a full minute before typing in her first search term.
MELISSA TAYLOR.
It was way too broad, of course, and pulled up a million sources, all of which Grace immediately knew were not her Melissa Taylor. She tried MELISSA TAYLOR BIRTH MOTHER, but even that was too big, too vast, and Grace suddenly felt again like Alice in Alice in Wonderland, when Alice became too small and fell inside a bottle that was washed out to sea, carried away on a current that she couldn’t control, too small to see past the waves in front of her, too insignificant to make a difference.
She closed her computer and sat back in her chair.
“Grace!” her dad called from downstairs. “Can you come down here, please?”
Grace knew that that wasn’t a good tone. It wasn’t as bad as the tone had been when she’d told her parents that she was pregnant, but she was pretty sure that it would never sound that bad again. Everything after that would be an improvement.
“Yeah?” she called instead.
“Downstairs!” her mom replied.
Two parents. It was times like this that Grace wished she had grown up with a sibling, someone to balance the scales a bit. It seemed a lot easier to be in trouble when you could point to someone else and say, “Wait till you hear what they did, though.” Grace thought it would be nice to not always be the only person in the house who kept screwing up.
She went downstairs, poking her head into the kitchen. “Yeah?”
“We need to talk,” her mom said. “Elaine from down the street called and said that she saw you with a boy at the shopping center?”
Grace frowned. “I didn’t realize that Elaine from down the street was running a police state.”
Grace’s dad raised an eyebrow at her. (Grace couldn’t help but think that Rafe was a much better eyebrow raiser, but she decided it wise to keep that information to herself.)
“It was Rafe,” she said instead. “He works at Whisked Away.”
Grace’s mom crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you dating him?”
“No,” Grace said. “We’re friends, that’s all.”
Grace’s parents exchanged a glance, and she once again wished for a partner in crime. Even a dog would have sufficed at that point.
“We really don’t think you should be dating right now,” her dad said. “You need some time to focus on yourself.”
“Well, good, because I’m not dating anyone,” she said. “Like I said, Rafe’s my friend.”
“Grace,” her dad said, “you have to understand. We just want to protect you. You’ve had a rough couple of months and—”
Grace could feel her temper starting to rise along the back of her spine, forcing her stand up straighter. “No, wait. Let me guess. Elaine from down the street called you because she’s worried that I’m slutting it up all over town again!” Grace’s face felt too hot, her pulse too fast. “Right?”
“Language,” her mother said.
“Oh, let’s just say what Elaine and everyone else is thinking!” Grace exploded. “I got pregnant, I had a baby, and now I can’t even look at a guy without everyone thinking I’m about to pop out three more rug rats!”